Are You Managing Your Online Reputation Effectively?
If you were to do a Google search for Mediaura right now, our website would come up as the first result. But, immediately after that you would see our Facebook page, then our Twitter page, then our LinkedIn page… see the pattern here?
The first search engine results page is the most important for your brand. Having a variety of social media accounts can help a business create a stronger online presence so old news doesn’t dominate the front page of search results. And controlling your brand can keep inaccurate or slanderous information about your business from tarnishing your reputation.
If a crisis strikes and you have to set up multiple social channels to fix the problem, your brand will have an array of well-ranking platforms to spread your message. Social media marketing is a full-time job for good reason. It takes more than random posts about your products or services these days to make a good mark on customers and potential customers. But it’s important to learn that if you do it wrong, you could find yourself in a whole heap of trouble. So in honor of Halloween month, let’s discuss some social media horror stories!
Social Media Fails
McDonald’s Twitter Campaign
It seems that McDonald’s gets grief no matter how they promote themselves, but with this particular promotion they really set themselves up for failure. McDonald’s decided to promote its brand on Twitter by using the hashtags #MeetTheFarmers and #McDStories to raise awareness of the Supplier Stories campaign and encourage tweets about positive dining experiences. Because the second hashtag was so vague, it quickly backfired as people started tweeting about their bad experiences at the fast-food chain.
A few of the many #McDStories horror tweets included one guy finding a fingernail in his BigMac and someone being hospitalized for food poisoning after eating McDonald’s in 1989, which drove her to vegetarianism.
This situation could have been avoided had the company had a strong social media management team who would have known the consequences of using such a vague hashtag before making this rookie mistake.
JPMorgan’s Twitter Takeover
JPMorgan made an announcement over their Twitter feed that they would be hosting their first live Q&A on leadership and career advice with a leading JPMorgan executive. The idea was you would tweet #AskJPM to submit a question about career advice. The mystery executive turned out to be the company’s Vice Chairman, Jimmy Lee. Just like the McDonald’s twitter campaign, the results weren’t exactly positive publicity.
People either made fun of the bank’s attempt at using social media or started tweeting insult questions about the bank’s recent legal problems and corporate responsibility. One woman asked Lee why he thought it was okay to “outright lie, cheat and steal,” and a blogger and online journalist asked about the scale of the bank’s alleged wrongdoing in electricity energy trading compared with that in its sales of mortgage securities. Almost every tweet was a blast to the bank’s ethics.
Many companies have thrown their executives out on the social media battlefield by hosting highly publicized Q&A sessions and more than not it seems these situations backfire. JPMorgan has faced numerous criminal probes, so why wouldn’t they expect the backlash?
Learn From Twitter Fails
Companies like McDonald’s and JPMorgan should have kept in mind that bigger brands make for bigger targets. A Twitter account with 1+ million customers is without a doubt going to attract some haters, especially because it is an uncontrolled and unfiltered platform. So how can social media planners be so oblivious to the potential negative results of a social campaign?
Businesses should always consider the worst-case scenario that could come from a social media post. Hashtags carry great risk because people can always put a negative spin on them. These disasters show how social media has the reach and speed to turn seemingly small incidents, like a vague hashtag or a bad tweet, into potential marketing crises. Anyone has the power to be heard in social media and bad news travels faster and further than good news.
Responding to Social Media Crises
If your business finds itself in the line of fire when it comes to negative social media press it is key to have a social management team to help you dig yourself out of the hole and manage the fallout. Here at Mediaura, we will:
- Be quick to respond to the problem and explain how it’s being fixed before it gets out of control.
- Be honest and open about what happened and explain the measures that will be taken to ensure it won’t happen again.
- Put your company in the best possible state of readiness for a social media crisis.
Prevent Social Media Mistakes
At Mediaura we know how to manage your business’s online reputation. Trying to maintain your business’s online presence as the Internet grows and technology progresses can be a very daunting task. It’s also easy to allow mistakes to happen when you are busy managing so many other things for your business. We will combat negative press, rip off reports and forum posts, but also social media attacks and we will make sure your social media runs smoothly from an internal standpoint. Let us demonstrate to your clientele that you are committed to quality service.
